FTC files to block Meta from buying VR fitness studio Within

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta is trying to acquire Within, the company behind the virtual reality fitness app Supernatural. Meta already owned the similar app Beat Saber, according to the FTC. There have been rumors for months that regulators might intervene in Meta's growing dominance of the consumer virtual reality market.

The FTC says that Meta has set its sights on building and controlling a Virtual Reality Metaverse. Within threatened the dominance of its own similar app, Beat Saber, which it had acquired by buying a different studio, because Meta saw fitness as a "killer app" market that would help it dominate the new virtual reality medium. The complaint says that allowing Meta to acquire Supernatural would eliminate the benefit of rivalry between Meta's Beat Saber app and Within's Supernatural app.

Meta has made a number of acquisitions in the field of virtual reality. It says that the company has become a key player at each level of the virtual reality industry: in hardware with its Metaquest 2 headset, in app distribution with the Quest Store, and in apps with Beat Saber and several other popular titles. The complaint states that Mark Zuckerberg is very serious about virtual reality.

“Mr. Zuckerberg has made clear that his aspiration for the VR space is control of the entire ecosystem. As early as 2015, Mr. Zuckerberg instructed key Facebook executives that his vision for ‘the next wave of computing’ was control of apps and the platform on which those apps were distributed, making clear in an internal email to key Facebook executives that a key part of this strategy was for his company to be ‘completely ubiquitous in killer apps.’”

The focus on fitness may help the FTC define a market where it can argue that Meta is creating a monopoly. The complaint states that Supernatural and Beat Saber compete in the virtual reality market.

Meta denied the allegations. The FTC's case is not based on evidence. Stephen Peters said that the idea that this acquisition would lead to anticompetitive outcomes in a dynamic space with as much entry and growth as online and connected fitness is not believable. The FTC is sending a chilling message by attacking this deal. The acquisition of Within will benefit people, developers, and the virtual reality space.